WSU Expands with $93 Million Biomedical Research Center in Midtown

On Thursday, October 25, Wayne State University (WSU) will break ground on a new biomedical facility meant to encourage collaboration between various scientific areas and translate new discoveries to improve human health and society.

On Thursday, October 25, Wayne State University (WSU) will break ground on a new biomedical facility meant to encourage collaboration between various scientific areas and translate new discoveries to improve human health and society.

The $93 million Multidisciplinary Biomedical Research Building (MBRB) is the university’s largest-ever construction project and will be located at 6187 Woodward Avenue, between the Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Hospital; the board attracted a $30 million grant from the state while the remaining $63 million is a mix of private donations and debt collection.

As revealed by WSU in a recent press statement, the 200,000-square-foot building will include wet and dry laboratories, faculty offices and clinical space, and it will accommodate up to 500 researchers and staff members and 68 principal investigators. The facility will be 93 percent occupied by WSU, and the remaining space will house partners from the Henry Ford Health System.

As reported previously, development plans call for reconstruction of the Dalgleish Cadillac building, a 127,000-square-foot structure designed by architect Albert Kahn in 1902, as well as the addition of a new 70,000-square-foot structure on the north side facing Woodward Avenue.

Architecture firm Harley Ellis Devereaux, which also designed the university’s A. Paul Schaap Chemistry Building, designed the project in collaboration with contractor Barton Malow of Southfield, MI. When fully operational in early 2015, the biomedical building will seek LEED Silver certification form the United States Green Building Council (USGBC). The project will create hundreds of temporary and permanent jobs and will generate nearly $40 million in new earnings in Michigan.

WSU’s new biomedical research facility is likely to increase the need for additional medical office space in Metro Detroit in the following months, according to a recent market report by Marcus & Millichap. In the first half of 2012 medical office vacancy in the Metro area decreased to 14.9 percent as compared to nearly 25 percent recorded during the same period in 2011.